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Command & Conquer: Generals 2 trailer analysis

If you blinked just now, you might've missed the Command & Conquer: Generals 2 trailer. It went by fast, but viewed under the microscope, these brief clips of in-game footage have a few things to tell us about the upcoming PC-exclusive RTS. Here's our play-by-play breakdown of the trailer.

Three soldiers stand on a ruined street corner as a column of four Global Liberation Army (GLA) Technical trucks zips by. The soldiers don't open fire, so they must be GLA. There's no way to tell where this is supposed to be located, but based on the architecture of the buildings it looks vaguely middle eastern.

Suddenly there's an explosion, probably from a mine or a tank shell, that rocks the first Technical and destroys the second. The truck is launched into the air, rolling and bouncing impressively as the gunner is tossed violently off screen. There's a lot of smoke and debris.

A quick shot of an EU tank rolling down the street toward the convoy. We can't be sure if it's a Crusader or a Paladin -- if it's either one, it's been heavily redesigned -- but it's definitely a tank. It may have fired the shell that destroyed the Technical, but we're not sure. Those treads are amazingly detailed -- so many moving parts!

Two tanks now. They're firing on the convoy, which is now made up of four GLA Quad Cannon trucks, with no sign of surviving Technicals. The buildings nearby are taking lots of hits, but there's no apparent destruction going on there. If there is, it's hidden by plumes of smoke. It looks like a person is flung from a window on the building on the left the first time it's hit. The lead Quad is hit and bucks violently, then veers into a nearby telephone pole.

Quad Cannons are supposed to be anti-infantry and anti-air, but one gets its act together and swivels its turret to fire on the tanks.

One tank goes up. Must've been lightly armored, previously damaged, or blown up for dramatic effect.

The other tank backs away in a hurry, firing parting shots as it goes.

The camera pulls back to reveal three VTOL aircraft raining machine gun and rocket fire down on the remaining GLA, and two more tanks moving in. There's nothing like this VTOL in the original Generals -- it looks more like a Tiberium universe GDI Orca than the Comanche attack helicopters of old. On the right, we can see EU buildings. From the look of it, that's a War Factory, or possibly a Command Center, and something large is under construction.

So, what do we know? It's gorgeous, for one. Up until this point (or rather, up until 2013), I'd argue that Relic's Company of Heroes and Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II games have held the crown for prettiest, most detailed RTS games available, but this video shows fidelity as good as or better than most first-person games. Visuals this great might make me feel bad for playing it zoomed out. On the other hand, playing zoomed in might make me feel dead.

How will it play? BioWare Victory's Jon Van Caneghem describes Generals 2 as "a return to the roots of core C&C gameplay," as opposed to the radical redesign of C&C4, and promises "bases, resources, and giant armies." We do see an EU base, and what appears to be a building under construction, so we can safely assume that there will not only be bases, but traditional base-building as well. One of those cranes might also be a supply depot, which would mean keeping Generals' model of piles of resources strewn around the map.

As for "giant armies"...I'm not so sure. The entire battle shown in the video involved three soldiers, three or four Technicals, four Quad Cannons, four tanks, and three VTOLs. Less than 20 units all told, and certainly no "massive battle" by any stretch. That doesn't mean that Generals 2 won't be able to field dozens of units on each side, but from the level of detail we're seeing here, it looks like BioWare Victory is focused on quality, not quantity, and I'm expecting a pretty conservative unit cap relative to most RTS games. I don't think I'll be eating my words when I say that Generals 2 won't be anywhere near the scale of Total War: Shogun 2 or Supreme Commander.

Surprisingly, the trailer doesn't show any true battlefield deformation. No buildings or walls came down, and no chunks were visibly blasted out. For that matter, even the telephone pole didn't budge when a truck hit it. That's kind of surprising from the Frostbite 2 engine, which DICE loves to hold up as being great at breaking things. BioWare Victory has to do something for the next year and change, so building maps that crumble at the drop of a hat might be on the to-do list.

We also know that Generals 2 will not be free-to-play, which is kind of surprising, but welcome news. Not because free-to-play games are inherently bad, but because no one has yet figured out a good way to do a free-to-play RTS.

Did you spot anything else in the trailer we missed? Let us know in the comments, and stand by for more info -- we'll be chatting to BioWare Victory soon!